Al Qaeda getting more active in Indian subcontinent: US experts

Al Qaeda is getting more active in the Indian subcontinent and has gained several hundreds of members till this year, counter-terrorism experts have told the United States lawmakers. Reports state that the terrorist organisation's cells are mostly in Afghanistan and its operatives are working from Bangladesh.

"By 2017, Al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent boasted several hundred members and had cells in Afghanistan's Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, Paktika, Ghazni, and Nuristan Provinces. Al Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan was almost certainly larger and more expansive than five or even ten years ago," said Seth G Jones, a strategic expert.

Jones made the statement while speaking during his Congressional testimony before US' House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence on Thursday. 

The strategic expert said that al Qaeda's expansion in the Indian subcontinent could be partly because of Taliban's advances in Afghanistan and al Qaeda's relationship with operatives from the Taliban and other groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Lashkar-e Jhangvi.

"Al Qaeda operatives in Bangladesh were particularly active, conducting a range of attacks. In addition, Al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent conducted a steady propaganda campaign from its media arm As-Sahab," Jones said.

In September 2014, Al-Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had announced the formation of an Indian branch of his militant group, stating that the group would spread Islamic rule and "raise the flag of jihad" across the subcontinent.

Zawahiri had announced that the formation of AQIS was good news for Muslims "in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat, Ahmedabad, and Kashmir" as it would rescue Muslims living there from injustice and oppression.

"A new branch of Al Qaeda was established -- Qaeda al-Jihad in the Indian subcontinent, seeking to raise the flag of jihad,...and return the Islamic rule across the Indian subcontinent," al-Zawahiri had said.

The terrorist outfit's head had also declared Maulana Asim Umar as the head of AQIS' operations in India. Born between 1974 and 1976 in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, Umar attended the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary before leaving India and moving to Pakistan in the late 1990s.

Katherine Zimmerman, research fellow, American Enterprise Institute, told the US lawmakers that a "recent surge in propaganda from AQIS leadership may indicate an attempt to revive the group."